Federal appeals court upholds Tyson price-fixing dismissal

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website] Tuesday upheld a ruling by a federal district court in Alabama, throwing out a jury verdict that said that a Tyson Foods [corporate website] subsidiary, Tyson Fresh Meats, manipulated cattle market prices through contracts with beef producers. The appeals court ruled [PDF opinion] that the cattlemen, who had been awarded $1.28 billion by the jury, "did not present any evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that Tyson lacked pro-competitive justification for using the agreements" with the selected beef producers. Tyson CEO John Tyson issued a statement [press release] Tuesday, saying "We're extremely satisfied by this decision, which protects the freedom of U.S. producers to market cattle the way they want and proves our livestock buying practices are proper." AP has more.

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